Without limiting the scope of the present invention, its background will be described in relation to an electrolytic system and method for generating biocides having an electron deficient carrier fluid and chlorine dioxide, as an example.
The occurrence of secondary, facility-acquired infections is now a leading cause of preventable deaths in health care facilities worldwide. Conventional housekeeping and disinfecting formulations, procedures and practices are ill-equipped to provide effective biological decontamination of medical facilities and other public places. The inability to effectively decontaminate the physical plant of these varied facilities creates an environment that enables the rapid spread and mutation of pathogenic microbes.
Up to the present time, disinfection and decontamination of health care and other public facilities has been accomplished with various conventional disinfecting formulations, including quaternary ammonium formulas, phenolics, and various oxide materials such as peroxides, peracetics, hypochlorites, and chlorine dioxide formulations, among others. Over time, microbes have mutated, developing resistance to, and in some reported instances have begun to utilize some of these disinfecting formulations as a food source. These include many quaternary ammonium formulas and phenolic compounds, which represent a large proportion of disinfecting formulas currently in use. At the same time, common oxide-based materials are often toxic to humans, have significant adverse environmental impacts, are highly corrosive and harmful to equipment and many other common surfaces, and have other adverse effects on materials, substrates, and often worker health.
Conventional chlorine dioxide formulations have a number of drawbacks when considered for disinfectant use in active medical facilities. While gaseous-phase chlorine dioxide has seen considerable amounts of use as a decontaminant for biological incidents, this process cannot be used in functioning facilities due to factors that include material concentration and toxicity, corrosiveness of the disinfectant and the need to tightly maintain both temperature and humidity in order for the process to work effectively. Traditional chlorine dioxide solutions also possess many of the same drawbacks for wide area facility use. Historically, liquid/aqueous based chlorine dioxide solutions have had limited shelf life characteristics, normally lasting for hours to at most a day or two.
An exception to this fact are the “stabilized” chlorine dioxide products, which chemically are chlorite salts dissolved in water, where a low percentage of the chlorite salt content disassociates in the water, creating a weaker, lower quality chlorine dioxide solution. In order to achieve even a moderately effective level of chlorine dioxide in the solution, significantly higher chlorite salt contents are required to overcome the low level of disassociation of the chlorine dioxide from the chlorite salt, resulting in higher levels of corrosion, health hazards and effluent salt loading. Often, additional biocide products such as quaternary ammonium compounds are added to the formulations in order to enhance efficacy against microbes and to overcome the low level of chlorite salt disassociation.
Historic methods for the generation of chlorine dioxide solutions include passing a chlorite brine solution through an electrolytic cell to release chlorine dioxide from the chlorite salt, simple acid release processes where an acid solution is added directly to chlorite brine, and chlorine gas-based processes, among others. These generation methods have technical process shortcomings and drawbacks typical of conventional chlorine dioxide solutions, including limited shelf life, limited efficacy, high corrosiveness, low material compatibility, explosive hazards, higher human and animal toxicity, and significantly contaminated effluent products. These issues have previously hindered the widespread application of chlorine dioxide-based formulas for biological disinfection of medical and other public facilities.
Historical processes based on the mass production, packaging, storing, shipping, and distribution of disinfectant solutions has not lent itself to the production and use of top-quality, premium solutions that are required to stem the rising tide of microbial infections. Without exception, there has been no single solution that is highly effective, environmentally benign, non-toxic and materially compatible with substrates commonly found in health care and public facilities.
Additionally, another historical shortcoming of chlorine dioxide-based formulas has been the corrosivity of the powerful oxidizing solutions, which severely constrains the utility of the product. Chlorine dioxide solutions are known to be very aggressive against metallic surfaces and other sensitive substrates.